Custom Given Names Like a Response of Distant Times
We go on with the publication of a overview regarding the origin of European names globally used today. Next part is devoted to names that arrived from distant past.
• Old Mainland Germanic: Several widely familiar names, that are William, Robert, Richard, Roger, Geoffrey, Guy, Hugh, and Matilda – all of those have well-established ties in German, Dutch, French, and other linguas – borne in Germanic pre-history. It is possible to utilize Polish translator to find more. Names reached English by a shaded way. The official language of the judges of the Merovingian and Carolingian France (5th – 9th centuries) was Latin, however their vernacular language was a Germanic dialect, and their personal names were predominantly of Germanic etymology. These French given names became established in ancient France and in due course were picked up by the Normannes who lived in Normandy in the 9th century. Upon the Norman invasion of England in 1066, these given names were brought to England, where they largely replaced traditional Anglo-Saxon given names such as Ethelred and Athelthryth. A very new Anglo-Saxon personal names preserved, for example Edward, that was borne by King Edward the Confessor (c. 1002–1066; ruled 1042–1066), the ancestor of an Anglo-Saxon man and a Norman woman, who was revered by British and Vikings alike. A rather different case is that of Alfred, an British name that fell out of use under the Vikings, but was restored in the 19th century in commemoration of the great 9th-century Royal of Wessex.
• Old Norse: Old Norse is, of course, a Germanic language, but its naming custom is rather original from that of continental Germanic, and many usual Norse forenames are still used in Scandinavia today, for example Olaf, Harald, Hakon. There has been much brought from German (e.g., Helga, Ingeborg). Several Nordic names such as Ingrid have been adopted much more broadly. Many looked for linguistic services into Slavic. In the latter case, the TV star Ingrid Bergman (1915–1982) was a strong influence.
• Old Slavic languages: Names such as Wojciech (Vojteˇch), BogusLaw (Bohuslav), and StanisLaw (Stanislav) are hardly used in the English-speaking environment except among Slavic immigrants, however represent a vital and independent Slavic tradition, with cognates in various Slavic linguas. A lot of such names are pre-Christian, whereas others have been sanctified by recognition as a saint’s name. Except where a saint has been participating, these forenames are not much used in Russia, because there the Orthodox Church has strongly insisted on using names related to Christian patrons, such as Fyodor (Theodore) and Dmitri. These are mostly of Greek etymology. Within the Western Slavs (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks) and Southern Slavs (Serbs, Croatians, Slovenians, Bulgarians, etc.), each linguistic community of Slavic natives has its own contrast list of traditional given names, most of which are of Slavic origin.